Forgive the late reply to this, I'm still catching up. This is something you'll still find in use in German today (and a right pain it is too ) - nouns used to be capitalized, at least by some writers. So he shouldn't have capitalized 'Turn', oh well, that blows my theory !

fanahoria wrote:I want to ask you. How does Detritus sounds in English?? I mean with this particular way to talk ("Der" instead of "The" and so on) Does it sounds Russian or German or what? and Nobby? and Serafine von Uwervald? If its not very dificult to explain

Just read on a bit and realized that I'd misunderstood the question(see below). I agree pretty much with what's been said. As for CMOT, I thought the cartoon portrayal of him got his accent pretty much spot on (in 'Soul Music' and to a lesser degree 'Wyrd Sisters'. He first appears about 4 minutes into this clip Soul Music - Episode 3 part 3).

Edit 1:Just read Tony's reply. Of course, Eric Idle, the classic spiv. To be fair (to myself) that's pretty much what CMOT did sound like in the clip I linked.

I thought that apart from the lisp Jeremy Irons's voice and accent were just right in 'The Colour of Magic' (it's about 2'20" into this clip: The Colour of Magic - episode 1 part 3). The lisp is just wrong. I wish the actors would read some of the books to get their characterisations right. I mean, David Jason? I think he's a pretty good actor and I like the things he's done, but not this. Rincewind was just not right. Hard to say exactly what was wrong, but he's far more sympathetic in the books. More world-weary, brow-beaten rather than mean and he came across as pretty mean in this portrayal. I digress… Rowan Atkinson as Blackadder, hmm. Pretty good. The accent's definitely right, but I always imagined Vetinari as softly spoken - understated. He doesn't need to shout and speaking softly makes him more menacing , in that uderstated, implied threat-of-possible-nastiness way of his .What about Vimes? I always imagined him being fairly well spoken with a gruff voice.

FTB? What's FTP? There was a Ram's skull too, but I don't know where that appeared. It was one of the later books. Best joke in 'Hogfather' (the film) was the "Anthill inside" sticker on Hex, made to look like the Intel ones.

Sjoerd3000 wrote:I don't have a middle name too! My sister has one though

Mine's Nicholas. My first name's Martin. My parents always intended to call me Nicholas or Nick, but thought 'Martin Nicholas Pretzel' sounded better than 'Nicholas Martin Pretzel'. In Germany your christian name doesn't have to be your first name, but this has caused much confusion here, so I always use the latter; it avoids being addressed as Martin. It's not that I mind Martin (I used to hate it), just that I don't immediately respond to it.end of edit 1

I originally thought this was a question about pronunciation of the names. I'll keep what I wrote, as I'd be interested in other peoples' opinions.

I'm not aware of any pronunciation guide for the Discworld books, I can only tell you how I pronounce them. I'm sure there'll be some differences of opinion but here goes:

I used to pronounce Detritus Deh'-tri-tus (with a short 'i') but have come to pronounce this the same as the word Deh-try'-tus

There can't be much controversy about Nobby, it's Noh-bee'

I pronounce Serafine Seh'-ruh-feen although a German pronunciation would be Zeh'-rah-fee-neh.

As for Uberwald, with my German background I pronounce this Oo'-buh-valt although I use the German 'ü' sound, to which 'oo' is an approximation

I hope that helps, but, as I said, there's bound to be some disagreement here . It'd be interesting to hear other opinions.

I know this is some four months after the original question, but I'm still catching up - I'll edit as I go along (I'm on page 17 at the mo)!
And a question of my own: what does XD mean? I've seen it a few times and can't think of anything that fits.

Last edited by NickPretzel on Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Tonyblack wrote:It wouldn't really cause a panic, it's Terry trying to be funny and the joke doesn't really work (at least in my opinion). If anyone was really called Winsborough they'd probably be teased mercilessly (or worse) because it's such a stupid sounding name.

The guy in Night Watch certainly wouldn't want the blokes he worked with finding out his real name, because they'd probably mock him.

But it really wouldn't cause a panic - it's a sort of far-fetched idea that Terry is putting forward to show how silly the name is.

I hope that helps.

I read this differently. I didn't think he meant that it would cause a panic in others - that's just silly, rather that it would cause Knocker/Winsborough himself to panic, as, given that we are in one of the rougher parts of Ankh Morpork, he would at best be mercilessly teased.

No worries at all. I think that in most cases, the answers we give here are not definitive ones. Only Terry knows for sure what was going on when he wrote the books.

But there are some Britishisms that may not make a lot of sense to non-native speakers, or people too young to 'get' the reference. That has certainly been the case with a lot of questions on this thread.

“Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.” – Blaise Pascal

Trev Likely has an internal-monologue Oh Crap moment in Unseen Academicals, when he realizes that the wizard who's supposed to use magic to prevent any cheating on the soccer field has just blocked all magic, including his own, from operating there for the duration of the game.

when did that happen? I checked and can't find it (if someone gives the page number, corgi edition please if possible)

Trev Likely has an internal-monologue Oh Crap moment in Unseen Academicals, when he realizes that the wizard who's supposed to use magic to prevent any cheating on the soccer field has just blocked all magic, including his own, from operating there for the duration of the game.

when did that happen? I checked and can't find it (if someone gives the page number, corgi edition please if possible)

The relevant passage is

Terry Pratchett in Unseen Academicals wrote:But I’m not playing, Trev thought, because of my old mum. He glanced down at the palm of his hand, no star there, he was sure of that. Anyway, he thought, staring at the opponents, when it all goes bad the referee is a wizard, after all.‘“Let others boast of martial dash, for we have boldly fought with cash,”’ roared the crowd at various pitches and speeds.I mean, Trev thought, he wouldn’t switch off his own magic, would he?‘“We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes.”’I mean, he really wouldn’t do that, would he? The only person who could stop it if it all went wrong wouldn’t have made a mistake like that?‘“We own all your generals–touch us and you’ll lose.”’Yes, he has done! He has done just that!‘“Morporkia! Morporkia! Morporkia owns the day,”’ Trev shouted to quell his own rising panic. He has done that, we all saw him! He’s kept his own staff inside the field where you can’t do magic. He looked at Andy and Andy nodded. Yes, he had worked it out as well.

And I wonder:
The former Dean is the referee...
That means even if he can't do magic, dear Andy should still be aware that there is the chance that if he (andy) pisses the referee off, and andy is quick at pissing people off, the former Dean might still come up, smack him over the head with the staff and sit on him for the rest of the game?